Angela never dreamed she would have an office romance. How could she? All day long, everyone sat in their cubicles miserable and regretting they hadn't called in sick. The closest she ever got to socializing was when she asked someone if they could remove their lunch from the microwave if they were done using it.
She'd tried to converse with others, but none of them seemed interested in anything other than getting their hours in and calling it a day. Angela presumed that was the way it was supposed to be. But she was so bored! Screw romance, she wanted someone to have a decent friendly conversation with her.
It was as she was packing up to leave work a little later than normal, that she got her first chance at friendship. She'd just exited her cubicle when she almost ran into the security guard.
With a startled yelp, Angela dropped all of her belongings.
The friendly security guard bent down with a laugh as she apologized. "Sorry. I didn't think anyone would be up here still."
"No, no. It's fine. I should have left an hour ago. I just wanted to finish this paperwork while the details were still fresh in my mind. Um," what was this security guard's name? She wasn't in uniform so she couldn't find a nametag. She only knew this woman was the security guard because of the brief glimpses she'd catch of her whenever she arrived early. What had someone called her? "Pharah?"
"What?" the tall woman asked in confusion, before she shook her head with a smile and handed the last of the papers to Angela.
"Thanks again for all your help." The blonde called as she scurried away.
From then on, Angela found herself seeing Pharah everywhere. She couldn't seem to not notice her whenever the Egyptian woman would enter the room.
And every time, Angela would greet her, "Hey, Pharah."
She would always get a nod and confused smile in return.
It was after a week of this that Pharah began to respond to Angela's greetings.
"Hey, Pharah."
With a cheeky salute, the security guard would reply, "Pharah, reporting."
Angela was starting to have hope for that office romance…er, friendship.
It was after a month since their first encounter when Angela found out. She'd done something horribly wrong.
"Pharah?" was the confused response of one Satya Vaswani. Angela had been trying to gather information on her potential friend and had asked the most knowledgeable member of the office, who had been quietly stirring her coffee. She was also the only one Angela thought would know anything about Pharah.
"You know, the night guard?" Angela prompted.
Satya's brow furrowed in confusion and Angela felt her hopes dashed. "You mean Fareeha?"
Now it was Angela's turn to be confused. "Fareeha?"
"That's the name of the security guard. That Egyptian woman?"
"Oh no." Angela had made a terrible mistake. But it was too late now! What was she supposed to do? Apologize? But what if that made her new friend feel bad.
Angela stayed late that night to rectify her mistake. When the security guard entered, Angela braced herself for the awkwardness about to ensue.
"Pharah?"
The woman stopped in her tracks. Sensing something in Angela's tone Fareeha waited for Angela to continue.
"It has been brought to my attention that I have been mistaken about your name." Angela squeezed her eyes shut as she bent her head down. "I'm sorry!"
There was a long pause before Fareeha made her way over to the blonde. When she was directly in front of her, she placed a firm hand on Angela's shoulder.
The shorter woman looked up into the security guard's eyes guiltily and was met with a soft smile.
"It's okay. I don't know your name either. I have been so scared that I was going to say, 'Hey…you' and look like an idiot."
"Well, it seems I beat you to it." Angela admitted with a self-deprecating laugh.
"It seems we've both been dumb, huh?"
"Yeah." Angela agreed as she covered her face. "Can we just…start over?"
Standing straight, Fareeha held out her hand. "Hi, I'm Fareeha Amari. It's nice to meet you stranger."
Giggling, Angela accepted the other's hand, "Angela Zeigler. A pleasure to make your acquaintance."
